Two Sides of Midnight
by Zipp Dementia
Summary: Based on John Harper's free RPG, Ghost.Echoe, Two Sides of Midnight takes readers on a journey through the cyberpunk city of Midnight, and it's other side, the Ghost World. When famed coven, the #STRIKERS, are sent into an ambush on the Ghost World, it sets into motion a sprawling conspiracy of events, and inadvertently puts the fate of the world into the coven's hands.
1. Chapter 1: Prelude to Purgatory

**Prelude to Purgatory**

1

Her shoulders pushed up against the cold stone of the building, her head resting back upon its cushion of black hair. She could feel the small bob that she'd tied it into pressed against her neck like a hand poised to strike. Water dripped into her eyes, blurring her vision so that she couldn't see the rain; she felt where it splashed against her skin and began to eat into her make up. She imagined the layers of paint dropping off of her cheeks as white tear drops. Passing her tongue over her rain-soaked lips, she tasted gasoline and vinegar.

The adrenaline was rushing upon her and no amount of acid rain could burn it away. She tried to tone down her emotions, to merely be uncomfortable. She could feel the cold of the building through the thin, purple, coat that clung tightly to her back. She forced herself to keep her eyes open and to let the rain burn them. Though none of these bodily sensations were pleasant, they were all better than that sense of slipping out of her skin against her will, of slowly losing her body, that always followed the use of her powers.

An airwhale passed above her and for an instant the little street was illuminated by its blinding spotlight. She raised her hand to block it out; a hand soaked in a red that glimmered slickly under the light. Then the ship passed, leaving Purgatory, heading to either MidCity or the Peripheries on some unknown errand. Her thoughts stayed followed, and for the passing of a moment she felt she might be able to drift away with it, a virtual stowaway. Her stomach lurched as if she had stepped off a precipice and she was sure she was going to phase out. Then her ear vibrated with the hollow echo of static. It was like having a glass pressed over her ear with a fly trapped inside of it. The buzz made her cringe but also brought her back to herself. She reached up her left hand and rubbed her earlobe between two slender fingers, adjusting the volume of the implanted chip.

"I thought we were on radio silence." Her voice was a whisper lost in the clatter of the rain against the steel street and the pounding of music through the wall behind her, the result of a shrill horn blasting a solo in a crazed jazz riff.

"A pointless precaution. The other covens are blind outside of the core." .ZHAR's voice carried subtle arrogance.

"Just checking in." That was .GREP, and she felt her heartbeat slow as she listened to his familiar level tones. "I'm with .SORT at The Watchtower. The rift will be opening in a few minutes."

"I'm ready to go when you are," .ZHAR said. "Found a rift loop at the canals. It's a tidy little thing. You should see what it's doing to the water."

".CAI, where are you?"

The woman who was known in the city of Midnight as .CAI wiped a thin sheet of the toxic rain away from her eyelids and blinked blurrily at the letters of the neon sign flickering above her head.

"Hobknobs," she said. "Edge of the dead zone. I'm a block from The Watchtower."

"Did everything go alright?"

She looked down at a dark shape at her feet, crumpled against the wall of the abandoned bar.

"More or less. He didn't recognize me at first, thought I was a street walker. It was over fast."

"Good. Get over here as soon as you can. .ZHAR, make sure you contact us again before you rift. I want to coordinate this."

"Man, I've been rifting since before you first got pulled in kicking and screaming to the Ghost World. Don't wait up for me."

"Next time, stick to the plan. I don't like making separate jumps if we don't have to."

"I thought #STRIKERS had more balls than that."

.GREP ignored him.

".CAI, get here soon. The rift is gonna be open in a few minutes."

With a quick, uncomfortable burst of static, .GREP broke the connection.

.CAI pulled herself away from the building, flexing her red hands. Looking back, she saw a dark black streak where she'd been leaning, running down towards the body of the man she'd killed. She reached up and undid the bun of hair, letting it fall across her shoulders. The unnatural rain was washing out her dye. It would stain her coat, ruining it, but she didn't care. She needed a new coat anyway. After tonight's encounter, this one now had a tear along the side from where the traitor had rushed at her with a knife after

_he had seen the scar above her right eye and maybe she had been too cocky in not covering it up with some kind of makeup because he had known then and had had time to draw the knife before she could react_

he'd realized who she was and why she was there. That same knife was now buried in his sternum. She'd seen

_a street walker. A young girl with black hair tied up in a cute bun. And after all, why not? Wasn't that why he came here every week? The place was known for street walkers. It was just that they weren't usually this young or this perky. And this one was dressed almost demurely, with that buttoned up purple coat and the skirt that fell down to right below her knees, leaving a tantalizing view of stockings over tight, muscled legs. Long skirt for a street walker; young for a street walker; cute for a street walker. She could be making much more money in Purgatory than in an abandoned zone. But then he had felt something different tonight, that something good was going to come his way. He wasn't usually picky, but he'd turned down the first three walkers he'd seen tonight. And this was his reward for his patience. He imagined that black hair loose and falling over his thighs while she serviced him, one of his hands wrapped through it, caressing the fine shape of her skull. He moved forward to taste those large sensuous lips, and his eye strayed to her one imperfection, a tear shaped discoloration above her right eye_

the knife flash in his hand and had barely had time to turn the slashing wrist aside before she heard the sound of ripping and the knife had torn into her coat instead of skin.

_that's why I skipped over the first three. Ghost Witch planted the thought in my head, she ensorcelled me. Bitch can't weight more than a hundred pounds. I'll slice her open and spill those Witch guts all over the pavement_

.CAI shook her head to clear it. The man's thoughts were rushing over her like cars passing by too close on a busy highway. She leaned towards to the body, held a hand up to the slack mouth. Sure enough, she could feel a slight warm breath against her palm

_how did she move so fast that should have cut her from hip to neck and how did she have a grip like that and oh god how was she pushing the knife back towards him, towards his own chest and then he was knocked off his feet, thrown against the side of the building, and the knife was pushing its way into his chest and his muscles were relaxing and contracting and the ramen he'd had that afternoon was emptying itself into his pants and she was pulling away still alive_

.CAI drove one palm hard into the handle of the knife, driving it sideways and deeper, piercing the man's heart and ending the deluge of his thoughts in her mind.

"That's for .HULL," she said and spat on the traitor.

Moments later, the alley was empty except for the body. Only the black streak on the wall marked that .CAI had ever been there.

2

The metropolis of Midnight is a sprawl. It sits upon the frozen earth as a black blemish, a gigantic circle enclosed on most sides by the Heavenly Peaks and, beyond that, the icy wastes. If there ever was a world outside of Midnight, the wastes are what is left of it. At the center of the circle lies Purgatory, the very pulse of Midnight. Here, ingeniously designed skyscrapers twist metallic girders and glass faces into the sky; here, cars built to fit some lost aesthetic drive the lengths of ever-decaying highways; here is constant noise and chatter, as the majority of Midnight's inhabitants work themselves to death, or entertain themselves into a placid acceptance of life. The noise, if you listen carefully from the right spot, is sometimes broken by the howl of one of the Tall Men.

The rest of Midnight can be defined as thus: the Peripheries, which are the outer ring closest to the frozen Heavenly Peaks and the icy wastes; MidCity, which is most everything else encompassed in a nightmarish suburbia; and the dead zones, places of abandonment sprinkled throughout the city with no order or reason. It was in one of these dead zones, a splotch of abandonment within Purgatory's otherwise bustling sprawl, that a certain traitor of the #STRIKERS had gone for a quick fix of the flesh and had instead ended up with his own knife embedded in his heart outside of a bar called Hobknobs which played live jazz music all night long, the louder the better.

This dead zone was special. It contained The Watchtower, and The Watchtower contained a rift that activated at exactly 11:59pm and 12:01pm every night, on either side of midnight.

3

The stairs went up the watchtower in a stoic square pattern, hugging each wall like the stairwell of an hotel. .CAI took the wide steps three at a time and was breathing heavily when she reached the third landing. _Only seventeen more stories to go_, she thought. The Watchtower was an anomaly in a city whose towers and skyscrapers were defined by black metal, blue super-carbon, silver titanium, and shimmering glass. It was brown brick and gray mortar, but more than that, it was brick and mortar which dared to jut into the sky. Like an ancient Tower of Babel, it mocked the more modern structures. _I can rise, too_, it seemed to say, _and I don't need your fancy super-carbon to stay up._ The fact that it didn't reach as high as the true skyscrapers didn't take away from its solemn grandeur.

Antique lamps lined the staircase and about a third of them flickered with ghostly light, shining on the rotten bits of carpet that still clung to the concrete steps like hair on a rotting skull. Huge ragged holes in the walls served as windows onto the city scape, which came steadily into view the further .CAI climbed. Sometimes the effect was disconcerting. The worst part was near the eighteenth story, where a whole wall had collapsed, leaving only the staircase framed by abyss on either side. To her right was a dark pit lit only by the pale lamps, giving her a dim view of the stairs spiraling away towards the ground. To her left was the inner city of Midnight; Purgatory, with its lights spread out like a blanket of stars that had fallen from the sky. It was early, yet. A little later, those lights would be joined by six actual stars, the only stars that still cared to shine over the city. No matter how much light the city polluted the night with, those stars would still be brightly visible. Far in the distance, the Uni-Crown stood like the finger of God, the tallest building in the city.

.CAI came upon this treacherous opening at a jog, and caught herself just in time to avoid running out into the open air. She fell to her knees on the last step before the opening. This hole hadn't been here the last time. The Watchtower, like everything else in Midnight, was slowly falling apart. She made the mistake of looking down over the edge and immediately felt herself sway forward with vertigo. She pulled back slowly and shakily got to her feet.

As she stood up, she felt something pulse through her and she dropped to her knees again before the sensation could topple her over the edge of the staircase. It was a rift opening close by, and she felt it in the same way that someone else might hear and interpret a sound muffled through a plaster wall. It was 11:59, then. She had roughly two minutes to reach the top of the tower and catch the last rift out of Midnight. She didn't have time to be careful.

.CAI leapt to her feet in a single smooth motion and began to sprint again, not thinking about the emptiness to either side of her, not looking at the dents and bits of carpet on the staircase waiting to snag and trip her, letting her feet go to where they needed without thinking about it. And like that, she was up two more floors, where the stairs ended in a small room that may have once been used for maintenance. Spare gears and levers lay scattered around the lamp-lit room, but whatever machine they had powered was long gone. Here a ladder led to a trapdoor in the ceiling. It was open and a light shone down through it.

Her pale hands closed around the bottom rungs of the ladder. She gritted her teeth at the unpleasant feel of the rust rubbing against her palms and began to climb. She was panting loudly when a short laugh drifted down to her.

"Told ya she'd make it."

The outline of .GREP's lean upper body and his wiry face appeared framed in the trapdoor. He reached down a hand. She took it gratefully and let him help her up the last bit of the way.

.GREP grunted as he pulled her into the highest room of the watchtower. It was little more than four arches which supported a roof and which had once held four massive stained-glass faces in each arch. Now only one remained, and it was covered with so much grime that whatever the image had been was indecipherable. An ornate chandelier hung from the roof, it's lights blaring almost offensively against the gloom, throwing shadows everywhere.

"Me and the kid had a bet," .GREP said, his features stretching to accommodate his dimpled smile. His brown eyes met her own teal ones in silent greeting.

The 'kid' in question, .SORT, walked into the light, towering over .GREP. "Which you lost," he said earnestly. His own chiseled features betrayed only a very little amusement, though she sensed he wasn't adverse to a game as long as there was a chance for him to claim victory.

.GREP shrugged at .CAI. "I said you'd be here by the first rift." He turned back to .SORT and pointed in mock accusation. "But you said she wouldn't make it at all, so I was closer to right. You owe me a beer."

.CAI's eyes strayed to .GREP's outstretched arm. They all had their scars, and .GREP's extended up his right arm in a pall of warped flesh, disappearing into his tight muscle shirt. A Wraith had caught him on the Planes and ripped a chunk out of his Ghost. .CAI had been able to heal the wound, but never the scar.

"I like your new look," .GREP quipped, nodding at .CAI's hair. "Trying to copy me?" Her hair that had been black on the street, black as .GREP's was naturally, was now a gross mixture of green and gray where the color was draining out, and a glaring platinum blonde where it was already gone.

"Yeah," .CAI said, her voice lathered in sarcasm. "Thought I'd try being ugly for a day, see how you do it."

But .GREP was already turning away, touching his ear and radioing .ZHAR to tell him to get ready to jump. .CAI wondered how long they had. Twenty seconds? Thirty? How close had .GREP come to losing that bet? .SORT had sauntered towards one of the arches and now stood with his hands in the pockets of his slacks, his open trench coat and shaggy brown hair blowing in the wind.

Barely a dozen seconds passed before she felt the rift wash over them. Stray pebbles and bits of granite on the dirty watchtower floor trembled and jittered, as stones sometimes do when a train passes by. She saw .GREP phase out. He walked towards a sizable briefcase in the shadows; he gripped the handle and then it was like he and the briefcase melded into the dark. She didn't see .SORT go. The pull had always been strong for her and she went almost immediately after .GREP left. With a tug at her midriff, she phased out of Midnight and into the Ghost World.


	2. Chapter 2: The Undercross

**The Undercross**

1

The moment they arrived in the /Undercross/, .GREP knew something was wrong. They all did. .ZHAR was already there, his human-shaped Ghost a shimmering plum color. In the four months that he'd known him, .GREP had learned that when .ZHAR's Ghost turned dark like that, the man was concerned.

.CAI phased in shortly after, a shimmer of pale blue out of the corner of his eye. Her concern was a little easier to interpret. "What the fuck is this?"

Her voice echoed loudly in the unfamiliar tunnel that stretched out before them. .SORT phased in as her outburst made its last repetition, appearing about thirty feet in front of .GREP. Or at least, it looked like thirty feet.

The nature of the Ghost World, sometimes called the Planes, was such that senses could become confused. Like the Ghosts themselves, the Ghost World seemed to have physical form. There were objects and structures. Some Ghosts could even phase in with other objects, like the briefcase .GREP still held in his right hand. There was gravity: things could fall in the Ghost World. If they fell from high enough, they broke. There were sounds, and smells, and certain places that were warmer or colder than others, yet none of these things were experienced in the way that they would be back in Midnight. Ghosts themselves looked like human figures pulsing with color, which flowed through miniscule veins. Close up, you could see the veins like the thinnest roots of a flower; from a little further back, the effect looked like a solid whole. Ghosts didn't have features, but their emotions created the _feeling_ of features. A Ghost could frown, for instance, and though nothing in the blank tumble of energy that made up her face would change, anyone looking at her would _see_ the frown.

A Ghost might recognize that she was cold without feeling discomfort or stand somewhere that she knew was dark and yet have no trouble seeing. She might even (if she had the proper mental control) decide to challenge gravity and walk up the side of one of the Ghost World's many buildings. Even more disturbing, the bundles of energy that formed her feet into accurate representations of human heels and toes would make _the sounds of __footsteps_ as she walked up the building. It was like being in a broken video game, one where the rules were partial to change if you spoke to them in the right tone of voice.

Sometimes even the simple perception of being in one place could become blurred and unfocused, like a memory someone is trying to recall. At those moments, entire journeys could seem to go by in an instant, though miles of "physical" land had been traveled. This phenomenon was called blitzing, and it was particularly prevalent in the winding tunnels of the /Undercross/, which was why so many Ghosts used it for quick traveling on the Planes. Spending too long in the Ghost World could drain a person to dangerous limits. If those limits were crossed, a Ghost would fade entirely, becoming part of that boundless energy, and the psyche of the user would return to the aether. It happened, oh yes. It happened more often than most covens wished to admit. Sometimes a coven of four or five Ghosts would go into the Planes and, if they were delayed too long, only three or four would come back. Never mind what part of the human mind created a Ghost; whatever it was, it was an essential part of making it back to reality. If it dissipated, so did the person. Because of this, getting around the Planes fast was desirable, and the /Undercross/ was an essential tool for getting it done.

The place resembled something out of 1950's New York; a sprawling grand central station made up of ancient architecture and filled with odd knick-knacks, such as a gigantic clock that seemed to change its time at random. But this was only a small part of the /Undercross/. Its real girth was in the miles of tunnels that began underneath its central station and spread out through… well, whatever passed as ground in the Ghost World. It could best be described as the subway system for the Planes, though most Ghosts preferred not to stray into its vast tunnels and networks except to blitz. There were no rifts in the /Undercross/ to offer quick escape back to Midnight, and no one knew how far the tunnels extended or what was living down there.

New York, Grand Central Station, subways… these things survived as pictures in dusty coffee-table tomes (.GREP's mother had owned one when he was a child), informing a cultural memory that no one living had actually ever experienced. Or maybe a very few had, but that comes much later in the story. For now, suffice it to say that the four #Strikers, led by .GREP, were all given a nasty jolt when they suddenly came out of their blitz. A quick look around told them that they hadn't reached their destination. .SOURCE had said he would meet them in the /Undercross'/ main station by the clock. They were still in the tunnels and Heaven only knew which section of tunnels, or how many levels underneath the main station these were.

It was unheard of: a blitz halting in the middle of the tunnels. That was what the tunnels were used for, to get from point A to point B. What was in between A and B? The Ghosts looked around at the bend of the tunnel that they were in, its sloped sides arching over them into a roof that was more suffocating than comforting. There was forward and back and not much else to see.

2

.GREP didn't have the inclination to be curious, analyze, or even to think—in unfamiliar territory, it was instinct which kicked in. In the Ghost World, tenths of a second separated life and death. As soon as the last member of his team appeared, he reached out telepathically, which felt a little like trying to shout his thoughts inside his head. Thinking, but louder, was how .SOURCE had always described it, but that did nothing to capture how unpleasant it was.

_Formation Iota!_

Formation Iota was a close-order arrangement, meant to provide cover for the less combat-driven Ghosts; .GREP played rear guard, .ZHAR moved in front, .SORT and .CAI stood next to each other in the middle. .GREP scanned the area behind the group, tapping into his powers of multi-spectral vision. In the real world, .GREP had read flowery writers who would metaphorically say a character "cast" their vision around an area. Now, .GREP literally cast his vision behind him, the way he might throw a baseball or cast a fishing line. His sight zoomed at high speed through the walls of the tunnel's curve and

_long straight-away, down which he can see the movement of several life forms. They are indistinct in his enhanced vision, like trying to see forms through a shroud, but they are moving along the walls and ceilings, which is a bad sign. .ZHAR will have to confirm what they are_  
a moment later he gestured with his free hand and sent a thought to .ZHAR. _There, multiple marks behind us, possibly hostile. What d'ya pick up_? Then, cringing at the feeling the telepathy left in his mind, like a bass vibration running through his brain, .GREP set down the briefcase and kneeled in front of it, quickly clicking it open.

3

_.ZHAR, search for patterns!_

The translated thought hit .ZHAR as a simple command. Telepathy was not an exact science and relied as much on the receiver to be unbiased as it did the sender to be accurate. He obeyed the order, but not without irritation. As he scanned the tunnel around them, .ZHAR felt his Ghost flush a brighter purple for a moment before settling back to its usual dim glow. The change was unavoidable—his Ghost control was not always on par with his physical self-control, although the signs were more confusing here in the Planes. .GREP would catch the flash, of that he was sure, but would think little of it. The man was observant—.ZHAR had to give him that much—but in an efficient sort of way. If the data wasn't immediately relevant, he put it aside. And .ZHAR had been chafing under him for four months without the man noticing. Maybe irritation was too simple a word for what he felt now. It was more... contempt?

Expanding his mind out, .ZHAR searched for the hot embers of energy that usually signified other beings, as well as searching for the tiny boxed sparks that his mind associated with the presence of energy fields. It was routine by

_sense life forms approaching from not far behind: based on their speed, they will be upon us in about a minute. Behind them, much further back down the tunnel, there is a much larger presence proceeding towards us. It will take longer to arrive_

now, and came to him without much effort or focus. He could contemplate other matters while he picked up the impressions, such as how much of bonus he would be able to request if he managed to save everyone's ass today.

4

"What the fuck is this?"

Even as she spoke, .CAl stepped to the side and got in her position, almost before .GREP ordered them into formation. She had paid close attention to his lessons and had memorized his normal tactical patterns months ago. A net of defensive energies reflexively constructed itself around the four Ghosts, borrowing energy from her form. The net had very little structure to it—just enough to hold itself up and provide a framework for her to channel more energy through in case she needed to defend the group against an attack. The technique was one she had worked hard to memorize, and perfect so that it wouldn't hinder the other Ghosts' sensing powers. That done, she glanced about the /Undercross/ passageway, seemingly unperturbed, though she frowned when .GREP began futzing with his briefcase. She knew what that meant.

"Well it's definitely a goddamn Monday," she said dryly. She didn't bother with telepathy. "Someone see something I don't?"

Despite the casual confidence in her voice, she felt fear scuttling around inside her. The /Undercross/ was her least favorite part of the Ghost World. She had been in these tunnels for a long time once, and had nearly died. The memory stuck with her, and although she didn't let her discomfort show to the group, she couldn't keep herself from hearing her own phantom sobs echoing around the dark tunnels, the way they had echoed several years ago.

5

While he took his place in the formation, as .GREP had ordered, .SORT couldn't help but question what was really going on and whether it was some kind of test meant for his benefit. He was relatively new to being a Ghost—at least, in respect to the rest of this team—and there wasn't enough evidence here to convince him that this experience was as unplanned for them as they were trying to make it seem. If this was a test, that was slightly amusing. If not, then unsettling; this coven was supposed to be one of the best around, and one thing he did know from experience was that being the best always got you more, stronger enemies. He wondered briefly whether he was going to get himself killed simply by fault of having joined the wrong crowd. As soon as he thought it, he couldn't but keep a smile from his face (or what passed for one here on the Planes). As if he had not been risking exactly the same thing much of his life anyway.

He noticed the thin barrier erecting itself around them. That had to be the girl, .CAI. He relished the way the barrier formed, the way the vibrations of her energy subtly reverberated into the air at just the right frequency to create the shield, which he could perceive through a combination of senses that he had still no words to describe, and which his brain processed as a mixture of tints and hue variations. The Ghost World was an art gallery to him; more than that, it was the paintings in the art gallery; it was being in those paintings; it was art itself. Every little action made on the Planes he detected as an incredible stroke of a brush held by an unbearably skilled hand.

"Well it's definitely a goddamn Monday," .CAI said with a hint of sarcasm. "Someone see something I don't?"

Her words were splash of color to his senses. In the real world, he would have kept to himself, just waiting to see what was going on here—he still wasn't sure that the situation hadn't been engineered to test him—but being on the Planes, where every action was so meaningful, his own emotions became twisted and harder to read. He wanted to interact, if only to watch his words collide and bounce off the walls around them.

"I think we'll see something very soon," he said, thinking to himself that he was in on the joke. He couldn't help but push it further: "Excuse me, but as the new guy, I have to ask... do any of you have the slightest idea who could have done this to us?" He watched the word _us_ go spiraling down the tunnels, leaving a faint, fading trail behind it.

6

"The sun, the moon, the stars, bad luck, karma... or some pissed off gentlemen or gentlewomen somewhere," .CAl replied to .SORT in a nonchalant manner, similar to his own, slightly mocking, voice. Annoyance was a sharp jolt in her head, and sour in her gut. She didn't like the smile .SORT was wearing, or the cocky stance of his forest green Ghost. He wasn't taking this seriously, and she couldn't for the life of her understand why.

"Hold your positions and get ready." .GREP's color was growing more vibrant as he straightened, finishing snapping the final pieces of his weapon together. The gun was now settled into the distinctive, lean shape of a Type 12 Longbow 8mm Magnum long barreled rifle.

"So it's to be a fight, then?" .SORT didn't sound dismayed.

"If they were planning on talking to us, they would have said hello by now," .CAI said, her voice a growl. She could sense the energy signals now, not far beyond the bend in the tunnel, moving closer. "Blitz or no blitz, I vote we move. Charge them, run away from them, all the same for me, but sitting here is going to drive me insane."

"Why not let them come to us?" .SORT argued, still sounding like there was something funny only he knew. "We can pick them off as they approach. We still have the advantage of distance and of knowing they're coming. If it were me—and, hey, it is—I would hold ground, maybe lay a trap."

"With what time?"

"You're telling me you can't power up that shield in a nano-second?"

"I'm telling you to shut up." .CAI shook her head. "Your call, .GREP." She crouched and prepared to sprint, just in case.

.ZHAR felt .GREP probe his mind briefly: asking what he was seeing. "Two groups incoming." .ZHAR pointed to their rear, purple fingers blurring together for a moment into a single flipper before separating again. "First group ETA one minute, not sure about second. Second is larger than first, will try to get a better reading on it."

Stretching himself forth, drawing deeply from the strange reserves of energy he had discovered within himself after his first, involuntary journey into the Planes (a journey every Ghost had to take), .ZHAR focused on the second approaching presence. Numbers, intent, energy concentrations—anything would help them prepare against the threat at this point.

.CAI said something else and .SORT answered again, but he couldn't hear them, which was just as well. Their constant nattering, as he thought of it, was tiresome. He sent his mind past the first group .GREP had detected, towards the larger mass of the second and everything went black for a moment. It was like hitting a brick wall, only with his brain.

7

.ZHAR's Purple visage flashed a rich, dark velvet, and he fell backwards against the stone of the tunnel wall. At the same time, .GREP cried out. Whatever .ZHAR had probed had reacted. His enhanced vision exploded in a burst of static, leaving a sharp pain that seemed to come from everywhere. .CAI moved towards him, but he waved her away.

"See to .ZHAR."

"Save your energy." .ZHAR pushed himself to a standing position before anyone could help him up. "Probe's been blocked. Whatever's coming is prepared to deal with our powers. Damn thing put up a shield."

.GREP shook his head and willed his normal vision to return. It did, and so did the winced, shakily, raising his rifle and bracing it against his chest. They didn't have much time. He could maybe get one shot off as the first wave swarmed over them. And they still didn't know what they were.


	3. Chapter 3: Click Clack

**Click Clack**

1

Everything in the GHOST world was hostile. But things didn't usually come this well prepared. Thoughts and possibilities collided with each other in .GREP's mind and spilled

_they're countering us. We've been set up. Advancing toward .SOURCE's known position might be a trap. We hold here, take the first shot, test their teeth, retreat if we have to_

over telepathically to the rest of the group. Probably whatever was coming heard it, too, but there was no point in masking his thoughts. Things were about to get loud.

"Hey, boss man, you mind keeping those thoughts to yourself?" .ZHAR tapped the side of his head. "Like alarms in my head, it is."

.CAI glanced at him. "You feeling good enough to banter, get up front with .GREP."

"Hey, I'm in position. Formation Iota." You could hear his smile as he said it. "All this military formality and trained formations ain't gonna help us against Wraiths, honey."

"That your opinion as a gang-banger?"

"Slaver, honey. We left the, uh, banging to less savory folk. Hey, you should try riding with the gangs a while, girl. They'd like a little cute thing like you."

"Let it all out, guys." .GREP adjusted his grip on his rifle. "Get the tension out before the real fight comes."

"I'm not tense, man. I'm sharing the wisdom you pick up on a bike, with another gang about to charge you down. Improvisation becomes more important than tactics and planning. Planning gets you killed."

.GREP ignored him, keeping his sight trained on the bend in the tunnel. If nothing else, maybe he could thin them out a little before they got to close combat range. .SOURCE had picked .ZHAR, and .GREP wondered if it had been a mistake. Coven leaders didn't usually make mistakes, but that was because, in this business, one mistake tended to be your last. He didn't know what .ZHAR was going to do from fight to fight. .GREP risked one quick look behind him. .SORT was, as usual, taking his own approach to things. The approach this time involved tracing a finger along one of the tunnel walls, slowly and deliberately. .GREP doubted it meant anything important. This was only their third mission together and so far the kid spent more times staring at walls then much else. Another mistake? .CAI at least he could count on. She had planted her feet in a fighter's pose and her Ghost's usual sky-blue color had paled so that she seemed to be see-through. The energy structures that made up her form were like a visible nervous system, with pulsating clusters around the brain and the heart. She was preparing something, but he didn't know what. The change made her harder to see, but she still exuded a state of heightened agitation or nervousness, and when the four Wraiths appeared around the bend in the tunnel, they went for her like hounds drawn to a scent.

They were known as /RATS among the Covens. Unlike the Ghosts, which appeared to be bundles of energy, the /RATS seemed disturbingly fleshy. They were bizarre creatures, closely resembling the upper half of a human torso with unusually long arms. Their skin looked like a sick animal's might, if you shaved its entire body. It was a dirty grey color, splotchy with bruises and liver spots. The heads had no eyes, just a wide jaw rimmed with razor-sharp teeth. This appendage grew out of their shoulders without the need of a neck. The /RATS had no legs, their bottom halves trailed off in folds of loose skin and fat, and yet they moved incredibly fast along the walls and the ceiling of the tunnel, pulling themselves forward with their six steel-like claws.

"Click Clack" only describes the general idea of the sound they made, the way it might appear on the pages of a comic book. The click got into .GREP's teeth and scratched at his gums, and the clack was like cockroaches running up and down his sides. It was the click of someone gently tapping a nail into a pretty girl's skull. It was the clack of his father's belt banging against the buttons of his jeans as he stalked down the hallway towards .GREP's room, his voice soft and whispering, telling .GREP of all the things he was about to do to him.

.GREP's palms were wet with cold sweat as he squeezed his rifle in a tight grip. He swiveled towards the lead /RAT and pulled the trigger. The sound of the gun's report and the kickback against his chest was soothing to his soul, blocking out the awful click clack. The bullet burst blew through the lead rat's front half, and tore a chunk out of the ceiling, which spit dust and shattered cement. The /RAT he'd shot hit the ground in front of him with an unpleasant squelching noise and a smell like a burning computer.

_One down._

The other /RATS bunched their powerful arm muscles underneath them, the grey flesh folding over in coils, and then launched themselves at .CAI.

2

.CAI'S connection to the shield covering the coven flared the moment the /RATS touched it. She grunted with the impact. This was going to take a lot out of her.

"You'd better be ready, .ZHAR, you son of a bitch," she whispered. She wasn't sure he heard her. She didn't have time to question it.

As the /RATS hit the shield, she fed power though it and twisted her body in a short, elegant dance, manipulating the filaments of force like a puppet master moving strings. The mesh of the shield came apart on one end and whipped over the head of the group, curving inwards as the /RATS charged. She let them push it forward, like mice charging into an open bag. The shield bent completely inside out and resealed on the other end of the group of /RATS, and with another wrenching twist of her hips, it abruptly contracted. The /RATS let out a high-pitched whistle which passed as their sound of pain. The shield washed over them with the effect of a hand scattering chess pieces across a board. They were ripped from the walls and ceilings and fell to the ground twitching, their arms flailing wildly in the air. One /RAT was hit mid-leap and its body stopped in the air and was whipped into the ground, where it lay twitching alongside its fellows.

.CAI's shield, now a net, lay over the downed /RATS. She breathed once and then made one last push. Her power channeled through her construct and bit into the deformed creatures all at once. Bolts of energy fizzled down the net, briefly warping their view of the tunnel, in a reaction meant to destabilize a Wraith's matrix and scramble their minds. The piercing screams bit into her, but she was more afraid then sympathetic. She kept seeing the /RATS getting free, their whistles turning to low rumbles of excitement as they moved in to devour her. The trick, she reminded herself, was not to think of them as monsters, but as stray bits of matter, floating about the aether, attracted to other matter not by bloodlust, but by basic instinct, like moths to a flame. All she had to do was turn up the heat.

The arc of energy was followed by a loud _sching_ that sounded like metal scraping on metal as the net channeled the last of its energy through the /RATS and disappeared.

3

Of course they'd all target one person. Focus fire, a good tactic if you had the angles. Or a suicidal desire to take someone down. Also makes it hard for allies to engage without risk of harming the victim. Over penetration, a miss, any number of little uncontrollable problems could spell disaster.

One thing .GREP had learned from his eventful life was that in combat pretty much the only thing you could control was yourself. Staying calm in the heat of battle was the best way to keep yourself, and your team, alive. He pulled the bolt back on his rifle, manually ejecting the old shell and clicking a new bullet into place. He took aim on one of the twitching /RATS. Then he screamed, as the remains of the /RAT at his feet wrapped around his leg and dug reformed fangs into the thick of his muscle.

4

The colors of .GREP's scream were a splash of beauty across his vision.

.SORT had been impressed by .CAI's display of power; he had gotten the idea that she wasn't a fighter, but evidently that had not been a correct guess. More than this, he had been impressed by how fantastic it was to watch another Ghost in action. He had never imagined it could be this way. He had thought that every Ghost would affect the Planes in much the same way he did, with the same patterns and the same artist's brush, and now he was discovering how wonderful being wrong could be. He saw every detail of .CAI's manipulation of her energy shield, the way she sent her thoughts through it, tightening it here and there, turning it into a net piece by piece. It was a careful movement, calculated; and yet it only took the span of a few seconds to come together. He felt nothing for the Wraiths which she caught in her trap. None of the vibrancy of life flowed in them. They were made up of dead, black matter, lacking all of the vibrancy of .CAI's brilliant shift of blue static, though which tiny images swirled and played. He wondered if they were her thoughts, or maybe memories. He saw a child in a dank room; a girl in a white room; a teenager in a dark tunnel. Small impressions, and meaningless to him, but still amazing to watch.

The /RAT'S high pitched whistles were just that: sounds displeasing to the ear. .GREP's scream was a living object that went shifting like a frightened snake down into the darkness of the tunnels. .SORT watched it go with fascination, and saw with equal fascination the sonic path of .GREP's bullet as it flared past him, the man's aim knocked off course by the /RAT which now gripped his leg in its fangs. .SORT almost casually decided to try and do his own part to stop this attack. He turned toward their enemy, and pointed his arm at the creature; his energy flared a brighter green as he projected his own will toward it. Then he spoke his order, trying to impose his command on the creature: "Sleep."

.SORT watched with euphoria as the command interwove with the /RAT'S skin, digging its way through its skull, burrowing into what passed for its brain, feeding it the command like an I.V. feeds an ailing patient morphine. The creature released .GREP's leg and scuttled backwards, its trailing bags of fat bunching up underneath it.

"How's the leg?"

.GREP didn't answer. His leg didn't support him and he fell backwards towards the wall. Even as he lost his balance, he was bolting his rifle again and taking aim. His next shot would have eviscerated the /RAT, except that something interfered.

Even as the Wraith was about to fall into a catatonic state, .SORT felt something else sever his connection. He gasped and redoubled his efforts, but it was too late. .SORT realized, mere seconds into re-establishing the link with the /RAT, that he wasn't going to be able to overpower it. He shattered the connection himself, rather than exhaust himself with further struggle, and prepared to meet the /RAT in melee combat as it released that whistling pop that passed for its voice and propelled itself forward. .GREP's shot missed, crunching another section out of the opposite wall. .SORT tried to ignore the way the shrapnel cascaded through the air, and raised a fist—a punch could be like a hammer-blow in the Planes—but the /RAT ignored him completely. It scrambled over the prone bodies of its fellows, heading straight for .CAI. He barely had time to shout a warning.

5

A nightmare was charging at her and .CAI wasn't ready. She could feel it. Everything was slightly off step, moving a inch of a second too fast. She was reacting, that much was instinct, but it wasn't going to be fast enough. She extended her energy past her arms, turning them into virtual blades. She had learned this trick during her first time in the /Undercross/, had learned it out of desperation. By now it was second nature and yet it was this time that she was going to be too slow, this time that she wasn't going to make it. The teenager had survived so that the woman could die. The /RAT stopped five feet from her and propped itself up on one arm, locking it into place like a tree trunk, supporting its ungainly bulk. Now the creature rose above her height. It pulled its other arm back, muscles rippling along it. She was moving forward to strike before it could swing at her, but it was the wrong move. She was going to be too slow and its slash was going to rip her head off. She wondered how it would feel to die on the Planes. Would it hurt much? Would she feel her neck bones snap one by one and each tear in her skin or would things just fizzle out, like losing a connection to a video game?

_You think too much._

The thought was not her own. A moment later, a pulsing blue wall appeared between her and the /RAT. It's swing connected with these instead of her face and when it did, an electric jolt siphoned itself into its nervous system and the creature backed away, whistling its piercing cry. .CAI didn't waste time with thanks; she darted around .ZHAR's construction and launched herself at the wounded /RAT (wounded _nightmare_) and tore into it with her blades. Each time she pierced its skin, she had a brief impression of its mind: a hollow darkness, and the hollow was the part that did the thinking and the feeling and felt the hunger. As she tore apart the Wraith, these things disappeared one by one. First the thinking went. Then the feeling. Finally all that was left was the hunger and it never stopped. Even when all that remained of the Wraith were chunks of flesh and skin hanging from her blades, the hunger echoed in her mind.

_Two down_.

Her form blazed a teal shade as she worked to keep control of her Ghost energies. She was not built for this kind of high-octane fighting, and she felt the strain. She fought to get her composure back.

"Definitely a goddamn Monday."


	4. Chapter 4: Departures and Destinations

**Departures and Destinations**

1

.ZHAR's next exhalation carried out across the tunnels as a sound of urgency: he hadn't forgotten what he'd sensed coming towards them. His mind worked through their situation quickly, narrowing their choices to two. One option: they could stay and fight, continuing to trap or destroy the stunned /RATS. During this fight, the Wraiths could become free. One of the Ghosts could be injured. And that thing, whatever it was, could catch up with them. The other option: they could flee. They might be able to outrun the /RATS. They might be able to get out of the tunnels before whatever it was he'd sensed found them. They might find .SOURCE, who would be a huge help in the battle. _And if there was a trap further ahead, they would run right into it_, the cynical side of him added darkly.

"More trouble coming. We need to make a decision," .ZHAR hissed at .GREP. Their temporary leader was gaining his feet and had a steady grip on that rifle of his, but he also leaned heavily on the wall for support. Wounded, then. Couldn't move fast. .ZHAR looked at .CAI and made another quick assessment. Her Ghost was pulsing rapidly through shades of blue. Exhausted. And .SORT was staring at the remaining /RATS, exuding more curiosity than a bemused cat, as if he were regarding a grand puzzle rather than creatures conceived in the ass end of hell. All three of his teammates were compromised, or worthless to begin with. And himself? .ZHAR didn't feel right, hadn't ever since slamming into the mental shield of whatever was coming after them. He'd taken no actual damage in the fight, hadn't even been targeted by the /RATS. And yet he felt sluggish and his powers felt… maybe the best word was slippery. Like he couldn't quite direct them the way he wanted to. Like an arm or a leg that has fallen asleep.

The /RATS were starting to recover from her first attack and were rising to their feet—or rather, their arms. He raised a hand and pointed it at them. Energy flared along his free arm, and with a flick of his fingers he projected another set of bars at the struggling creatures. It fell on top of them, knocking the Wraiths back to the ground. It hadn't been what he meant to do; he'd wanted to build a cage. This wouldn't do much except slow them down. If .GREP made the call to run, it might buy them some precious time. If .GREP decided to attack, the Ghosts might get in the first strike. But .ZHAR wasn't going to be the one to make that strike. He wanted to be ready to pull back if it went badly for his team. He wanted to survive, at all costs.

"Make the call, .GREP," he said. "Now." And he checked to make sure he had a clear avenue to run.

2

.GREP got to his feet, pain shooting through his body. He didn't quite understand pain on the Ghost Plane. It should be an issue of mind over matter, you'd think. It would make sense that, in a place where you could walk on walls and will things, like .CAI's nets, into existence, you could also control the flow of pain through your projected Ghost form. But then, that was lesson number one that he'd learned to obey as a Ghost: never expect something to make sense. .SOURCE's words.

The /RATs were a nuisance, as always. If they could be knocked out, even if temporarily, it'd buy the team time to find a better spot—being cornered in here by the other "trouble" .ZHAR was sensing would be suicidal. But then, something was interfering. He'd never known a /RAT, which was a low-level Wraith, to recover from a shot like the one he'd landed on it. And he'd felt something, too, when .SORT had tried to will it to sleep. Someone was interfering. Probably the same someone who was shielding whatever was coming from his heightened senses. There was no way to prepare for it. He'd already been caught off guard once in this fight, and it was only the first move. He needed to start the game over entirely. He was used to making this kind of analysis. But he was also used to telling it to .SOURCE and letting him make the final call. The man was a natural leader. .GREP was a natural wingman.

"Disengage," he heard himself say, before he realized he'd made the decision. But yes, it was the right decision, the data told him that. "Disengage! We need to find a more defensible position."

Lesson twelve: Don't engage the enemy if you don't have to. If you do have to engage the enemy, always do it on your terms.

"If we can find a branch in the tunnels as we advance, we might be able to flank them," he added. _And if not,_ he thought to himself, _then I might be exhausting us for this thing to move in and make a kill_

_._

3

The two remaining /RATS were beginning to twitch more rapidly, their arms seeking to shove off the bars .ZHAR had tossed on top of them. It wouldn't be long before they could move fully. .CAI had poured enough energy into them to kill a Ghost. But then, a Wraith wasn't a Ghost, not by a long shot. She was feeling slightly nauseous, with a headache that pounded a nail into her skull every time she took a breath. She had over-exerted herself with that last outburst; her powers were much better suited to fixing things than tearing them apart, and she hoped she wouldn't have to be doing too much more of that in the next few minutes. Retreating sounded like a fine idea.

.CAI grabbed .GREP's arm as they pulled back. Her energies were soothing, rapidly winding through .GREP's Ghost. Her light blue, wispy tendrils curved into his amber form, wrapping him from head to toe, lingering especially on his damaged leg, before returning to her. The experience, for .GREP, was not unlike receiving a full-body pat-down and was unashamedly intrusive. But all the members of the group had long ago to become used to .CAI'S techniques.

_You're not badly hurt. The risk that would come with trying to heal you fully now isn't worth the gain, but that should ease the pain, let you run. Tell me if it gets worse._

Her mind-voice was far softer than her normal scathing tone. In return she felt a wave of .GREP's gratitude and something

_the room was quiet, though the city lights shone out brightly beyond the windows. If she were to open them, the night life would come flooding in as a mixture of music, yelling, and the sounds of various vehicles. But she didn't move; she simply stood and looked out. His eyes wandered up the naked, gentle curve of her back, marking the muscles that made up its landscape and the scars that told her story. He could see her face reflected in the window. Her eyes caught his and he reached for the bottle at his elbow, taking a slow swig of the heavy liquor. It tasted like mouthwash and cough syrup but was, somehow, not half bad. Vesper, he called her, and told her to come to him. She laughed and told him to come to her. He drank again, and brought the bottle with him_

else, a memory he didn't known she'd seen. A daydream, in the middle of night. Had her voice invoked it? She wondered who the woman was, and then felt guilty for wondering. She hadn't been meant to see that. She'd been a voyeur—unintentionally, but now she needed to do the courtesy of putting it out of her mind.

"Don't get hurt again," she said out loud in a harsher tone, severing their connection.

4

The four Ghosts ran along the tunnel, disturbed by its bizarre incongruities. The tunnel walls and ceiling were formed of rough stone and concrete, but the floor was tiled black and white, like a 1970's American kitchen, and polished so that it became a mirror world in which four Ghosts fled from an unseen horror. Every so often a face would be carved into the stone walls. They were never pleasant faces; their features tended to be exaggerated to the point of the grotesque, and they even appeared to move slightly as the Ghosts sped past; a leering face would break into mirthless laughter, while a sobbing face almost seemed to shed tears.

.ZHAR's senses were heightened after the adrenaline rush of fighting the /RATs and he was constantly aware of something closing the distance behind them. The others felt it, too; not as distinctly as he did—he could almost see the shape of the thing following them, something long and thick, its bulk filling the tunnels and crushing the expressive stone faces as it passed—but enough to motivate them to keep moving. Only .SORT was nonchalant about the retreat. He fell to the rear, often slowing to look at the carvings, or to pause at the opening of some side tunnel. Several times he fell out of view as they moved around a curve, only to catch up just as .GREP decided they'd lost him.

Of the side tunnels, they passed many, though .GREP gave few a second glance. At some, he would stop and cock his head to one side, listening (as he called it) for the way out. At each of these brief halts, the phantom sounds of her past torturous ordeal came back to .CAI, until the panting of her current retreat melded with the memory of her frantic flight through these tunnels as a teenager. She'd been new to the Ghost World and completely unsure of her ability to survive in it. She wasn't sure that seeing more of the Ghost World had boosted her confidence.

Time grew confused. Distance created its own rules. The Ghosts had traveled for half the night, yet had only come a small distance from where they had been pulled out of their Blitz, when .GREP made a longer halt in an area where six tunnels came together at a crossroads. .CAI took the opportunity to sit down and rest her head in her hands. Ghosts were a mental projection without organs or a skeletal structure, but it was a projection that maintained strong ties to the physical world. A Ghost's lungs and muscles could ache, and hers was on fire from the forced pace they were setting. Meanwhile, .GREP walked a circuit around the tunnels, listening at each one, his amber form casting a dim light down each one, revealing more of the same: stone and tile, and the leering faces of the stone watchers. .ZHAR put up with this for one rotation before losing his patience.

"Make your choice and let's move on, or choose one at random if you don't know," .ZHAR said.

"I don't hear any sounds of pursuit," .SORT offered. He'd sauntered into the crossroads a little after .GREP had started his circuit and watched his movements with fascination. "Perhaps we've shaken them."

"We haven't."

"How do you know? I can't sense anything. The signals are all confused."

"Fear is something you learn to trust in once you've been saved by it a few times."

.CAI looked up. "You're afraid? That's not something I'd ever expected you to admit."

.ZHAR shrugged. "Fear is a sense, like any other. It would be stupid to ignore it. If you're facing an intelligent enemy, they'll be planning what you're most afraid of. Like now. I think we're being worn down, chased in circles so that when the danger strikes, we have no energy left to fight back."

They were startled by a sharp laugh from .GREP.

"Circles!" he cried. "That's exactly what it is."

He walked towards one of the tunnels. "This way," he said.

"Are you insane?" .ZHAR pointed down the tunnel accusingly. "That's the way we've come."

"No, it's not. Not anymore."

"He's right." .SORT wandered over to the tunnel entrance, the green of his Ghost brightening in wonder. "This isn't the same tunnel we've been walking down. The Undercross is… shifting. Like a child's puzzle box."

"Or a complicated mouse trap," .ZHAR added, but .GREP shook his head.

"No one has control over the Ghost world, especially not these tunnels. Whoever set this trap was hoping we'd be killed in the first ambush, or be lost down here long enough for us to dissipate."

.CAI stood up with a shudder at the thought. "And what's keeping that from happening, anyway?"

"Because there's something different about this tunnel. It's doesn't feel so disconnected as the rest of the options."

"Could be the way out," .SORT offered.

"And there could be another ambush waiting for us as soon as we get out," .ZHAR replied.

"Let's escape the first trap before we worry about the second, shall we?" .GREP said. No one could argue with that logic, and so they moved forward.

.GREP's intuition proved, at least in the short run, to favor them. The tunnel did feel different, in much the same way as a cave explorer might feel a cool breeze and taste fresher air as they neared the exit back into the open expanse of the world above ground. It was not long before the team spotted a stairway in the side of this new passageway. The stairs on the stairway were moving, giving them the common name of escalators among the Ghosts. But unlike an escalator in the real world, these Ghost World equivalents had no mechanisms to power them and their stairs were solid stone that shifted and moved upwards and downwards as if by magic. If you looked at the stairs, tried to focus on one at a time, they didn't seem to move at all, but suddenly you would realize that your eyes had shifted and you were now looking at the top instead of the bottom where you'd started. The effect was sometimes unsettling, like many things in the Ghost World, but the purpose was at least the same. The escalators only led into and out of the tunnels, which meant that this represented an escape into the station above. Whether they would be safe there was unknown, but it would bring them closer to leaving the Undercross and finding a rift back to the real world.

.GREP also had a suspicion that their blitz had been interrupted near their destination, which would mean they might still be able to make their planned rendezvous with .SOURCE—if this ended up being the main station. They would know as soon as they reached the upper levels. That huge clock; that would be the sign they were in the right place.

If not… .GREP looked over at .CAI's bluish form and remembered past victories and past tight spots. If not, they'd deal with it.


	5. Chapter 5: The Second Trap

**The Second Trap**

1

.ZHAR counted his heartbeats—if his Ghost form could be said to have a heartbeat—as the rest of the team sprinted for the escalator. He could feel the ache in the back of his neck, a stinging, grinding feeling from the energy barrier his previous probe had struck earlier. He did not relish the idea of returning to Purgatory with a nose bleed and a brain hemorrhage—or worse.

.CAI was first to mount the stairs. It was clear to him she wanted out of the Undercross more, if possible, than the rest of them. Was it a general fear of cramped, dark spaces or did she have prior experience with these tunnels? His mind, trained by years of riding with the biker gangs back in Purgatory to sniff out weakness, stored the question away for later investigation.

.SORT was next up. The man moved with a damnable lack of concern. Was this a sign of some deeper motive? Of all of them, .SORT was the only one who hadn't been damaged in the fight. The /RATS had ignored him, in fact, focusing instead on .GREP and .CAI. Was .SORT not surprised by the current twist of events because he had some part in crafting them? .ZHAR didn't feel any especial loyalty towards this coven, but he had a sincere hatred of being duped. If .SORT was behind this trap, .ZHAR would get it out of him and devise a proper punishment.

.GREP was the last. He halted before the stairs, playing the leader again.

"Get up there," he said but .ZHAR shook his head.

"There's something I want to do. It'll buy us some time," he added, before .GREP could argue. .GREP hesitated for a moment, which .ZHAR didn't appreciate, and then moved on without a glance back, which .ZHAR respected. The #STRIKER coven had lived too well. They hadn't had to deal with the constant loss that the other teams which traveled the Ghost World handled. .ZHAR had witnessed coven-mates eaten alive on the Planes. It wasn't pleasant. Whatever a Ghost was made of, flesh or no, their screams were real enough. And when a Ghost was in the height of fear, sometimes reality got a little confused. He'd seen steaming guts fall out of the murky color of a fellow Ghost who'd had his abdomen torn open by a /Wraith. He'd seen Ghosts bleed, too, and heard the crunch of their skulls as /Wraith jaws crushed them. More than that, he'd had to leave coven-mates behind to this fate, so that he didn't meet his own end. Those kind of decisions were easier to make if you didn't get all buddy-buddy with each other, the way .CAI and .GREP had, and the way .GREP kept trying to get with him and .SORT. He probably believed it led to a more cohesive team but .ZHAR knew the truth: it led only to more death.

With .GREP gone ahead, the purple Ghost slid his form backwards a few steps up the staircase and then began to walk slowly forward, keeping himself in one place while the distorted stairs continued their perpetual upward roll. Purple lightning sparked around his arms as he reached out for the walls on either sides and, with a stab of both arms, anchored a force field across the length of the tunnel. He was pleased with this effort. It hadn't felt like it did back with the /RATS. Maybe whatever damage had been done had been fleeting.

As .ZHAR's barrier took place, something large and black, like a hurricane contained by a body, slithered its way into sight. It was huge, taking up the entire tunnel, and yet it was oddly amorphous. Every movement it made changed the size and shape of its body so that one instant it was a whirlwind driving at top speed down the tunnel and the next it was a tendrilled mass, turning to slam into the force field.

.ZHAR backed quickly away; the force field held and the /VIPER, a particularly deadly kind of Wraith, continued to slam into it behind him without effect. For now.

2

The escalator took the Ghosts into an area so large it could have passed for a city block. It could best be described as an open maze. Crossways intersected all around them, leading off to other escalators or disappearing into curving hallways and darkened arches. It was a confusing mass of geometry, like being in an Escher painting. The whole thing extended upwards to a cracked stone ceiling: the room was at least sixty feet tall. Above their heads, bridges crossed the gap and disappeared into nooks and crevices in the walls, speaking of more rooms and levels yet to be seen. Lighting the area were intricate chandeliers lined with so many burning candles that they seemed like mini-suns.

.GREP recognized the place. This was the main station of Undercross, though he wasn't sure how far they were from the entrance—and their exit. Navigating the Undercross was like sailing the sea: ever changing; ever shifting. The station itself was only so large, but it didn't always follow the rules of logic. One could travel a winding stairway only to find themselves at a dead end. Then they could turn around to see the stairs no longer went all the way back to the ground floor.

For this reason, most Ghosts hated the Undercross,, despite its usefulness as a hub.

3

.CAI hurried into the main station of the Undercross pushing ahead of the group, eager to be far gone from the place. Her color regained its normal aqua-blue shade for mere seconds before she realized they were not near any visible exits. Then her form immediately became very pale and her energies mellowed to a nervous, unhappy low. Seeing all the open passageways and bridges made her step backwards, almost ready to hop down into the tunnel with the /VIPER. Her instincts were speaking far louder than her mind, and they were screaming for her to get out of the open, to run, and to hide. She shook her head to try and clear it and turned back to the rest of the Coven, seeking out .GREP, for his familiarity. He came up the stairs as she turned her head and she instantly felt that he had noticed her looking. He walked over to her casually enough, but there was an extra quickness to his step that told her he was concerned. When he reached her, he gently took her arm. She felt a tinge in her mind as he passed a thought behind them to .SORT, who was silently staring at them.

_.SORT, scan the area. Report in. Two minutes._

.SORT sent back a quick acknowledgement and devoted himself to the task, walking slowly around the room, poking his head into the side passages and leveling his senses on each of the bridges above them in turn. .GREP remained holding onto .CAI's arm.

_Hey. You with me?_

There had to be something to do, something to do that could take her away from here. She strained her senses to feel anything, maybe she could sense some signal, /LOOT or another Coven; anything from outside the Undercross to lead her out. Through her anxiety, .GREP's voice came to her as a jumble of words. She had to focus to unscramble them. They formed as a red sentence in her head.

_.CAI. We're safe. Stay with me, now._

She thought back in a panic.

_We're not. We need to get out. They're coming for me._

.GREP took a stronger grip on her arm. That last line hadn't sounded like .CAI. It had sounded too young, too frightened. A child had stepped in from somewhere to scream those lines. The tirade continued.

_This was a trap. And when you leave a trap, you go back to check it. We're only safe until the trapper comes back; if he hasn't already. They're coming for me._

That voice again. _They're coming for me._

"Where the fuck is .SOURCE?" .ZHAR asked, as he came up the stairs. "We got a sonnuvabitch down there, bashing its brains out against my shield. Don't know how long it's gonna hold, but I'd prefer we're not hanging around here when it breaks. I assume you share that preference."

For a moment, .GREP appeared to have visible brows, knitted together, as his consternation was superimposed on the amber of his Ghost. "We'll hold here for a moment," he said. "We need time to gather ourselves."

"We need to move. Otherwise, getting out of those tunnels won't mean a damn. Hell knows how long we were down there. We've been running out of time since we phased in, we gotta phase out before we break apart."

"We'll rest for a moment, regain our strength. We don't want to push ourselves to exhaustion."

"No, .ZHAR's right," .CAI said, before .ZHAR could argue—which he was about to, if the sudden pulse of his Ghost was any sign. "Anywhere is better than staying still."

.GREP breathed a sigh of relief. He actually agreed with .ZHAR's assessment of the situation, one hundred percent. But he was worried about .CAI. Ever since the loss of .VIXEN, and .HULL—and the disappearance of .DAEMON—she'd been different. Fragile, is how he would describe it_. _And now .SOURCE was missing, too. .GREP didn't know if their leader had been delayed, or waylaid. If he had fallen prey to the trap which was meant to capture them all, then that meant .GREP was the new team leader. Did it also mean that .CAI was going to slip further into mania? She'd always had it in her, he knew that. But she'd controlled it until recently. She still blamed herself for .HULL and .VIXEN, he knew that. Maybe time was the only thing that could heal that.

"Hey, boss, we standing here or moving?" .ZHAR asked.

"We're moving. We need to retrieve .SORT first." He looked around the station hall, wondering where the green-colored Ghost had gone and began to move towards the last place he'd seen him lingering, by an ornate archway on the other side of the grand room. .ZHAR followed. After a few seconds, .CAI brought up the rear.

_.SORT, report in. We're getting out of here. Did you find the best way to move forward?_

No response. .GREP was about to send out the call again when he heard something clatter across one of the bridges high above them. .ZHAR heard it, too; he stopped and his head moved with hawk-like quickness to the ceiling. .GREP let his own vision wander around the gargantuan station. Things echoed in large spaces, so he looked everywhere—left and right, up and down—to try to detect the source of the sound. He activated his x-ray sight tentatively; the white hot retaliation against his last use of the power was still fresh in his memory. When nothing countered, he expanded his vision and trained his rifle on the bridge directly above his head. There was movement there, something like a wisp of cloud. The sight sent a shiver through him. He was seeing a shadow of what had been there moments before. Sometimes this happened with his power, he would catch what he had once heard .SOURCE call "trails." These were whispers of movements that had happened in the recent past; energy signatures that had been left behind by some creature or, sometimes, by another Ghost. His eyes followed the trail to the end of the bridge. Whatever had been moving above them had disappeared into one of the passageways surrounding this room. Because of the shifting nature of the Undercross station, his vision would only help him so much in locating whatever it had been.

He shut down his vision, left with a feeling of distinct unease in his gut that caused his Ghost to shift color slightly. Though the shift was imperceptible, he still looked instinctually towards .ZHAR, filled with an irrational self-consciousness that he might not be fulfilling the role of leader to the biker's satisfaction. He wasn't sure why that should matter to him, and the wondering itself annoyed him. .ZHAR came from the gangs, stealing and murdering to make his way in Purgatory. If anything, .GREP should feel like .SOURCE had done him a favor by allowing him on the team. By all rights, .ZHAR was being honored by given a role alongside the more experience .GREP and .CAI. And yet .GREP often felt like the newbie on the team alongside the reticent gang member.

_I knew it. It's always something._ .CAI's thoughts echoed in .GREP's head, along with a flash of anxiety. She had sensed the movement, too, then.

_Potential contacts, probably hostile._ That was .ZHAR, stating the obvious with his usual slight touch of sarcasm. .GREP couldn't help but feel it was partially directed at him, like saying "hey, man, you gonna come up with a plan, or we gonna sit here and get chewed up by whatever the hell was on that bridge?"

_Everyone, hold position and go on the defensive. .CAI, shields up. Eyes and ears open, people, understood?_

Confidence was a tool. Your troops were more likely to give you credence if you sounded confident. Focus. Show them you can do this, .GREP. Show them that you can get them out of this. Stay strong, and they will too.

4

Shields. Put up the shields.

I can do this, she told herself. Shields are simple. It's the first thing I learned to do as a Ghost. It's what kept me alive in the Undercross so long ago. She was exhausted, though. How long had they spent running through those tunnels?

If I put up a shield, it could leave me fully drained. I could phase out. I could be stuck here forever. Like .HULL had been.

The memory of .HULL sealed it. She wouldn't let the team down, again. She couldn't let himsee that she was faltering, tiring.

Shield. Put up the shields. It won't hurt us. Put up the shields.

5

.ZHAR placed one hand over .CAI's and slowly stepped back until they were both standing with their backs up against the closest wall. He wanted to be in the area of her shield and present as little a target as possible. His own defenses were about to go down for a moment. She didn't seem to object. The shield wasn't up yet, she was probably concentrating.

His thoughts still felt a bit slow from the previous backlash he had suffered in the tunnels, and he was glad to have the little blue-hued healer with him, though he would never admit it to her. Healers were a rarity among Ghosts, and that made them a commodity. And like any commodity in Purgatory, that put them in a powerful position. He liked that .CAI had her insecurities, it kept her from abusing that power. It was too bad he had never met her before being found by .SOURCE. He could have formed his own coven, then. Maybe he still could, if he could get her away from .GREP. But survival first.

Reaching out, slowly and cautiously this time, .ZHAR let his energy sense drift outward and tried to detect whatever it was that had made the noise—or anything else in the vicinity, for that matter. .SORT, if the bastard hadn't run off. Advanced warnings on more /Wraiths would be welcome, even more so than detecting /Loot. Money would mean little to him if he was to suffer a Soul Crash here.

.ZHAR kept his power dull at first, letting it reveal that there was nothing in this room aside from themselves. Then he began to siphon more energy into his ability and increase its scope.

He first felt the presence on the very edge of the room, huddling near a giant archway to the north of the room. He could never see shapes very well with his ability, but he could sense immediately that it was a second-tier /Wraith, in terms of danger somewhere high above /RATS but somewhere below the /VIPER still pounding its head against his barrier downstairs.

On a whim he extended his power further and that's when he felt the Ghost. He or she was so distant from their current position that he couldn't pinpoint the exact location, though he wanted to say that the Ghost was standing in the station entrance. He had only barely felt the Ghost's presence before his senses turned to static in his mind. He shut down his ability at once, not sure if this was an attack from the Ghost or simply his ability being strained. It did only have so far a range, after all, and he wasn't even sure if the Ghost was their enemy. It could very well be .SORT, or even .SOURCE, though he thought he would have recognized the energy signature immediately in either case.

To the others it seemed like .ZHAR had become a rock: he stood stock still, his head slowly turning on his neck as he scanned the area. Twice his aura pulsated with a flash of color. There was no other change.

6

She was completely engrossed in her work, unaware of her surroundings. She didn't hear her fellow Ghosts. Even .ZHAR'S touch did not register. Healing was important to her, it was a role she understood. Learning how to heal things on the Planes had been a very tricky process. She had first discovered that she could do it by healing herself. But it was very different from normal medicinal practice. It shared more in common with an art form than a science. On the down side, healing small insignificant injuries often took the same amount of time and energy as healing large potentially lethal injuries. On the up side, injuries regarded as permanent, crippling, or lethal were often not. Re-attaching limbs or chunks of Ghost "flesh" was relatively simple and safe, more like knitting than surgery. Gaping wounds in almost any part of a Ghost could be healed, given skill and power.

Like when she had healed .GREP, earlier. Several links in the sensory area of his Achilles tendon had been ripped apart. Over time the damage would have healed itself. To speed up the process .CAI had made splints for the links and then channeled her power into them to guide the links back together. It wasn't unlike weaving. The dangerous parts were when she attached the splints, and then when she sealed them together after repositioning them. It was too easy to rip the links or fuse them in the wrong order. .CAI had an intuitive understanding of the Ghost anatomy and rarely made mistakes, but she never stopped being careful.

Shielding was a similar process, though in reverse, and she had learned it first and mastered it much faster than healing. Rather than repair holes in a Ghost, shielding ripped holes in the fabric of the Planes, warping the space between the attacker and the target. /Wraiths, in particular, reacted poorly to these tears. The tears would rip pieces from the /Wraiths and try to use those pieces to repair the holes she made. Over time, the repairs would work, which was why her shields only lasted a short while against assault. But in the meantime, they decimated the /Wraiths that slammed into them. She supposed it was the equivalent, for them, of hitting an electrified fence.

.CAI was so focused on putting up a shield now that she didn't realize how dim her aura was becoming. It was only halfway through the process that she suddenly became aware of it: the room around her started to change.

The walls were whispering riddles; the floor was telling her stories. .ZHAR's energy signature became a world unto itself, threatening to pull her into its twisting highways of energy trails and synapses, where she could be stuck for months that went by in seconds, traveling neural pathways that existed in an entirely different frame of time and physical space.

She recognized the danger, and pulled her vision away from .ZHAR abruptly, cutting off her connection to him. When she stared upwards, she saw the ceiling high above their heads pulling itself apart to reveal stars and black space. She felt like she was falling towards the space, but a stronger part of her mind knew she wasn't.

It was the kind of experience she'd had years ago, when first journeying into the Planes. It meant she had pushed herself too much. She tentatively looked at .ZHAR's Ghost again, but only for a second to tie the shield to his aura. It would be able to take care of itself from here on out and would travel with him. She was slipping, she knew, and wouldn't be able to give the shield more attention. Then she pulled her eyes away before she could be trapped in him.

When she turned away, she saw .SOURCE standing next to .GREP. .SOURCE wasn't in his Ghost form. His hard-lined face was set in a grimace of distaste; his eyes pierced hers from under his untidy mop of thin, sandy hair. .GREP didn't seem to notice him. In fact, the amber Ghost seemed to be looking past him, at her. .GREP was saying something, gesturing with one arm and that rifle he was somehow able to bring onto the Planes. One of his gestures brushed through .SOURCE and left a vicious rip in his side. Out of the tear poured red fire. And then she wasn't staring at .SOURCE anymore; she was looking at .HULL and he was begging her to put him back together and she was trying to fix the energy but it wasn't working and pieces of .HULL were floating into the ether and he was begging her to kill him rather than let him drift off and be stuck forever in the Planes.

Me, too, she said. Kill me, too. I don't want to be stuck here, either.

7

Nothing. Nothing was coming at them.

.GREP sent out another message for .SORT. Nothing came back, though he felt a slight twinge pulling his attention in the direction of the archway. He hoped .SORT was simply lost in one of his moods; then .GREP could berate him later with relief. The alternative was that the man had fallen into another trap and was presumably dead.

Not just fallen. Sent there by .GREP.

".CAI, cover my back. I'm moving ahead to that archway." He pointed with his rifle in the direction he was headed. "Stay close to me."

.CAI made no response. .GREP turned to look at her. Her Ghost was pale. Paler than before? He couldn't tell. She was looking right at him, too. He got the impression she was smiling.

"No," she said. "He died. He must be dead, not to be here." Her voice was calm. .GREP felt ice run over his nerves.

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"Whatever's hunting us won't find us if we get out of here quickly. And I know the way."

"Okay, great," .GREP said cautiously, taking a step toward her. She sounded confident enough, but something was wrong here. "We have to find .SORT, though, before we can leave."

"I remember that tunnel!" she exclaimed, an outburst so sudden that .GREP's rifle arm immediately drew the weapon up into a shooting position, and .ZHAR shook out of his concentrated stupor with a startled curse.

"I know that leads outside to a square in the inner city of the Planes," she continued. "There's a Rift near there. If we hurry we won't have to worry about the things chasing us. Better to run and fight when we know what we're fighting anyway—on our own terms, like we're used to. I bet I can lead us out of here."

.GREP tried to talk over her tirade of words, but her loud voice drowned him out. He felt she wasn't talking to him at all, but to someone he couldn't see. Someone not present, or who hadn't been present for a long time, or maybe wasn't present yet.

"We've got other problems, girl, so keep your shit together," .ZHAR was staring above .GREP's head and backing away along the wall.

"Stop her!" .GREP shouted, as .CAI bolted, running straight for the archway. He moved to grab her himself and that's when he felt the sudden danger and looked up to see what had been watching them this whole time.


	6. Interlude: SORT's Story

**INTERLUDE: .SORT's Story**

1

He let the smoke from his cigarette drift slowly from his mouth, momentarily distracting himself from the bar across the street. He thought he was probably the only person in Purgatory—hell, maybe in Midnight—who didn't smoke for the high. Cigarettes had little effect on him physically, good or bad: he neither coughed his lungs out nor felt the blanket of calm his peers described. He just liked watching the smoke come out of his mouth. He thought it looked cool, and he liked being able to control it, like living art.

As the smoke dissipated, he returned his gaze to the bar. It was a double story structure that still managed to looked squat and stunted, and was squashed into a thin city block next to five or six other shops of dubious quality. Their windows were dark. Kal couldn't tell what business went on there during the day. One looked like a pet shop, another an antique store, but he didn't really care. His attention was focused on the one place that was lit up, the "Libary." It was supposed to be clever, he assumed. The idea was to have a bar mimicking a library, featuring floor-to-ceiling shelves stacked with books. The servers dressed severely, like the stereotyped image of librarians, and the literal bar was an actual library's front desk, one of those huge, immovable wooden monstrosities. Someone had moved this one. Way Kal had heard it, it had been jacked from an abandoned library in a periphery dead zone. The books, too. Apparently there were boxes and boxes of the things in a warehouse underneath the bar. So many that the owner of the Libary didn't try to keep track if customers were occasionally walking out with a couple books; thousands were waiting to take their place. Anyway, you didn't have to steal the books: the bar doubled as an actual goddamn library. Really, with library cards and accounts and all that. No late fees, though. In a place where there may be no tomorrow and even the near past seems forever ago, there didn't seem to be a point to late fees. Too hard to quantify.

Kal didn't care about books. Reading bored him, and made him sad in a way he couldn't quite place. He didn't like going to fantasy places, because eventually he had to return to reality; the shock of the one was never worth the escape of the other. Books hadn't brought him here in the past, and books hadn't brought him here tonight. He was here for a girl. He pressed his cigarette against a dilapidated street lamp until the butt went dark, and deposited the butt in his jacket pocket, in case he wanted to light up again later. Then he walked across the street, towards the antique-looking door that led into the Libary.

2

A bell chimed directly above his head as he entered, sending out a sound that was more than a "tingle" but less than a piercing "tinkle." It was a dull sound, too tired to do much more than give Kal's entrance a perfunctory announcement. Even so, the tiny noise startled him and he instinctively pulled his baseball cap ("Population: 2" printed in white across the front, advertisement for some long forgotten band, he thought) down further over his eyes and hunched up his shoulders, hands thrust in the pockets of his jeans. He glanced quickly around, assessing. The bar might have been designed like a library, but it had the population, noise, and lighting level of a normal bar: crowded, loud, and dim. People flitted about the space so much that it was impossible to tell who was waiting tables and who was simply changing seats, getting another drink, or grabbing a book from one of the shelves—which were the only things that were well lit. Each shelf sported a row of halogen lights to illuminate the titles. The rest of the bar was lit by light fixtures set perpetually to "dim" and candles in cheap, plastic holders designed to look like frosted glass. The patrons who remained seated were shrouded in shadows.

Kal moved quickly away from the entrance, finding himself next to a shelf full of Victorian authors. The Victorians: a people so ancient that they seemed perhaps legendary. Kal kept himself facing towards the shelf, but his eyes weren't really seeing Oscar Wilde's _The Picture of Dorian Gray _or Charlotte Brönte's _Jane Eyre_. They scanned the room, picking through the shapes, looking for a profile they knew well. He crawled his gaze over the closest tables first. No, she wasn't there. Was she upstairs? He hoped not. As an orphan, Kal had often had to steal in order to survive. Later, it had become a profession. Living for twenty-two years off of stolen goods in a city which allowed merchants to cut off the hands of any suspected thief was no mean accomplishment. Kal had learned that were rules to being inconspicuous. For instance, in a crowded place like this, with people coming and going (a hugging couple, in fact, brushed past Kal now to continue their groping outside), no one noticed a newcomer. But anyone sitting upstairs would instantly be drawn to look at him as he ascended. Humans couldn't help it. It was primitive instinct to hold the high ground and to survey all wannabe ascenders for the possibility of a threat. And she would view him, in particular, as a threat. That was reality, whether he liked it or not, whether they were b—

There she was.

She sat at a table in the very back, her fingers pushed up through her dark curls as she rested her head on one hand, tilting her head at the man sitting across from her. Kal couldn't see her smiling, she was too much in shadow for that, but he knew it was there and he felt his temples pound at the thought of it. She had a smile that extended to all of her features. The tiny nostrils on her thin nose would be flared with it. Her wide eyes would be lit up—those eyes which had somehow remained innocent in a place where everyone was guilty. The black dashes of her eyebrows would be lifted, as if jumping in joy along with her lips. And the feeling that radiated from her when she smiled: it was too clean for this place, for Midnight. Kal wanted her to have better. And this man, who was soaking up her smile—what were his intentions for her? Kal's hands clenched into fists in his pockets. She had snuck this one past him for longer than the others. It had been four weeks since the last one had left. He'd thought it an abnormally long time for her. Even then, he probably wouldn't have caught on except she'd been so calm—so pleasant to be around. She'd actually been talking to him lately and then, yesterday, she'd bought him a gift. Him, a gift! Something that actually cost credits! He didn't know where she'd gotten the spending money. More secrets. He reached up now to grip the necklace. Two round coins from the underworld, on a golden chain. Probably not expensive, and certainly it would be considered junk by anyone who hadn't spent their time living off of what the streets, gullible business men, and easily-picked safes, could provide; but she'd known he would like it, and she'd been right. The coins were beautiful to the touch; the backs smooth as silk; the fronts rough and scratchy, engraved as they were with intricate designs and writing. He liked to run a finger first over the back, and then over the front.

And what gifts had she given to this stranger? Something more primal? He turned hot at the thought. He guessed they'd probably been dating now for two weeks, exactly the time she'd started talking to him again. How many times had these two met in private in those weeks? He saw her head bob with laughter: were they laughing at him, thinking they'd played him for a fool?

He shook his head, trying to clear it of rage. His own sister lying to him, and him not able to do anything except continue providing for her. Damn the girl; did she not realize how vulnerable she was in this world? Kal had done too much for her, that was the problem. He'd never taken the time to show her how to survive on her own. He'd always assumed he'd be there to find food, find shelter, protect her from the prying eyes of men with deep sexual hungers, who wouldn't appreciate her innocence and spirit but were just looking to pork away at a pretty piece of flesh for a quarter hour, whenever they could get it. He hadn't counted on her trying to undermine his efforts in this way; for her to fight back against her own protection.

Kal wanted to move closer; he wanted to see this man who was undoubtedly trying to use his sister. He began shuffling forward, always keeping another person or shelf between him and his sister, moving gradually sideways around the periphery of the room so that the man's profile would come into view. The music in the bar shifted, from that mixture of piano and laid back synthesizer which was maybe best described as New Age or Ambient, to something darker and moody, with an underlying beat like the mythical heart of a sleeping dragon.

He was halfway across the room when she stood up and started walking towards him. Instantly, Kal froze. He'd been seen. He was sure of it. But his sister didn't look annoyed or angry at having been followed to this secret rendezvous. She was still smiling and her eyes were downcast, giving the impression that she was amused by a private joke. Kal decided he'd take it easy on her, maybe hear her side of the story first. Hell, maybe she'd invite him over to the table, to introduce him to her boyfriend and, for a moment at least, they could pretend that life was normal and that they were forming a pleasant little nuclear family.

Abruptly, his sister turned. She walked past the shelves he was slouching between and went towards the front where, maneuvering past the crowded bar, she disappeared into the woman's room at the back. Kal watched the door close behind her, stared at the ubiquitous woman's symbol above the door, and felt struck by an odd emptiness. His sister was a woman. She was no longer a kid. She hadn't seen him in the bar, that much was now clear, but would it have mattered if she had? Life had walked her past him into womanhood the same way she had walked past him just now. When had she grown up? Where had he been? With a quick pang of guilt, Kal realized he didn't even know how old his sister was. Sixteen? Eighteen? She couldn't be older than eighteen… could she be? He couldn't remember the last time they'd celebrated a birthday. For him, every day that they survived was a miracle, and there wasn't much to celebrate in that. He was working towards the grand celebration still. Now he wondered if he had missed his goal by aiming for too long.

Kal suddenly saw clearly the current situation. He was skulking in a bar, spying on his sister, a woman who was only happy around him when she was deceiving him; a woman who was well within her right to have any relationship she damn well chose; a sister, he had to admit, who could probably take care of herself. She'd be coming out of the bathroom any moment. He looked back towards the table she'd left behind. The man was accepting two new drinks from a waitress. They looked orange and sweet. The man squeezed lemon into the both of them and stirred, first his, then hers. Kal could go up to him now and within three minutes have this man out on the street and out of his sister's life. Things would go back, for a short while, to the way they'd been while they were growing up: Kal providing for his sister, surviving every day as best they could, by whatever means they could. Her needing him.

Kal stood up straighter, stiffened his muscles, debating. And then he turned around and left the bar.


End file.
